De invloed van organisatieklimaat op het creatief handelen van hbo-docenten. Creativiteitsbevorderende en -belemmerende factoren binnen hoger onderwijs.

The influence of organizational climate on the creative behavior of teachers in higher education. In the current knowledge economy, creativity is an important attribute that enables organizations and employees to deal with the current changes. Higher education fulfills an important role in teaching these intellectual skills. This requires an investment from teachers of their own creative potential. However, contextual factors influence the practice of that creative potential. These factors are called the organizational climate. The aim of this study is to provide empirical evidence of the extent of the relationship between creative potential and practiced creativity of teachers as influenced by the organizational climate in higher education institutions. The construct validity of creative potential and practiced creativity have been validated by DiLiello and Houghton (DiLiello & Houghton, 2008). The measure of organizational climate has been validated by Ekvall (Ekvall, 1996). Organizational climate is largely determined by the contextual factors of challenge, time, idea support, debate and risk taking. In this study, the conceptual model, in which the relationship between creative potential and practiced creativity is influenced by the aforementioned contextual factors, was investigated by conducting questionnaires among 324 teachers from 15 different institutes of higher learning. The results show that, in particular, idea support has a positive effect on creativity. Time is also a factor that positively influences creativity, although this effect is smaller than expected. The factors of challenge, debate and taking risks have no influence on said relationship. The practical implications of this research include placing greater emphasis on the behavior of leaders who positively influence creativity. Further implications, limitations of this research and suggestions for follow-up research are described at the end of this report